"She's a bean-pole, dude!" blurted T., followed by another round of hushed laughter.
"How would you know with those giant grandma sweaters she wears?" joked Brett. He looked over at his friend's red face and saw how upset he was. "He's kinda got a point about her smile, though."
"I'd like to see her with her hair down, actually." Jim affirmed.
"You got a sweater fetish, or something, Brett? And you." T. knocked Jim's shoulder. "You and chicks' hair, man. I swear to God. Are you guys all on crack? She's just so. . . I don't know. Blah."
"No," Gary said, shaking his head. "I don't think she's 'blah' at all." His spare, matter-of-fact way of speaking always had a way of making his friends listen. "I kinda like the way she looks. You know?"
"No, dude," said T. "I don't know. Totally unfuckable, man."
"Not to me." Gary's quietly sincere admission penetrated their flippancy like a silent arrow, and a hush settled over the table.
"Hm." said Jim.
"That's cool," said T. "Hey, you should ask her out."
They all looked with unspoken hopefulness at their shy friend.
"No, no," said Gary quietly. "Come on, let's just. . ." He waved his arms in circles in front of him, indicating the pile of books on the table. "You know."
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Sark, the librarian, who seemed to enjoy patrolling the back corners of his domain in search of mischief. "You boys are in here to study aren't you?" he groused, shaking his head almost humorously. "Come on, now. Let's get back to work."
The boys hushed quickly, when a sudden loud bump interrupted them. The vibrations traveled through the wood of their built in seats. It seemed to come from the other side of the study partition they were all huddled in.
"What the hell was that?" T. stood up and looked on the other side of the half wall. "Hm. Weird." He surveyed the area quizzically.
"What was it?" asked Brett.
"I don't know; nothin' I guess." T. sat back down. "One of you guys fuckin' with me?"
Jim raised his eyes in a spooky searching motion and wiggled his fingers, "Woo Ooo Ooo." They all laughed. "So who are you inviting to your Halloween party, T.?"
"Well, not you, smart ass!"
* * * * * * * * *
"Ouch," whispered Kathleen, rubbing her sore shoulder, now safely out of sight in the opposite corner of the library. A stupid, inexplicable panic had prompted her to jump out of that booth as soon as possible, and now her shoulder was paying the price. She felt like an idiot. Still, she was grateful that she had been able to slip behind one of the nearby bookshelves before that T. guy saw her.
Kathleen loved listening to guy talk, and opportunities like that were rare. She still couldn't believe they were talking about her. Gary? Gary Bennett? He was in her Chemistry class, but she remembered him from a few classes she had shared with him over the last couple years. She couldn't understand it. Gary had always seemed so stand off-ish to her. He usually talked in grunts to everyone but his friends, and he hardly ever made eye contact with anyone. Her practical side scoffed at the rising feelings of giddiness in her stomach. As much as his words stung, Kathleen was more inclined to believe T.
Even so, their dirty talk had turned her on. She couldn't help it. She was strangely anxious to get a good, fresh look at Gary when she got the chance. The voice she'd heard on the other side of the wall had seemed so sincere. She blushed to herself, embarrassed at her chronic, overactive imaginings of what could be.
- - - -
Kathleen evaluated herself in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. T. had it right, she thought. "Blah" was a pretty dead-on description. She sighed and turned sideways, seeing her dark hair trickle in strands behind her shoulders. She could barely make out that she had breasts at all underneath her oversized t-shirt and the thick cardigan sweater she wore over it. Her butt was similarly nonexistent underneath the loose jeans that lay in bunched folds down her legs.
She leaned toward the mirror to try to get a fresh look at her face, and grimaced at that stupid freckle on her cheek. With an optimistic impulse, she tried out a smile, and was immediately sorry she did. She looked like she did in the family pictures--as if being forced to smile at a live cat-skinning--and just shook her head, groaning. She even tried pretending she was laughing at something, and then had to look away to prevent having to see her face turn red on top of it all. It was awful. She somehow felt less hideous without the smile. What was that Gary guy thinking?
Maybe they knew somehow that she was listening, and were just playing games with her. Still, that crew could be annoying, but they never had the reputation of being malicious. It was a small high school, and those guys were almost inseparable, especially Gary and T. Two more opposite people she couldn't think of, and yet their friendship was obvious. She wondered what it would be like to have friends like that.
She stood silently, still in conflict with her imagination between what was and what could be. Her practicality surrendered with a resigned exhale, as she removed her sweater and unbuttoned her jeans. She bent over, her hair slipping off her shoulder and behind her head as she turned to watch the denim slide down her legs on to the bathroom floor. She stepped out of them, and turned to face herself in the mirror, noticing how her white panties peeked out underneath the hem of her baggy t-shirt. She crooked her head inquisitively, trying to see herself through Gary's eyes.
Pressing on, she lifted her T-shirt up across her flat tummy and over her head, tossing it onto the floor with her jeans. They had mentioned Kelly Granger. Kathleen was so far the opposite of Kelly that the comparison prompted a hopeless chuckle at the image in the mirror. She wished she were more like her. Kelly had boobs that turned heads, an ass that no one could ignore, and on top of it all, she had a kind of sexy confidence that Kathleen really admired.
What if Gary looked at her the way the rest of the guys looked at Kelly. Was that even possible? The mere fantasy of such a thing made her shoulders shrug in a shiver of excitement. Her mind was playing games with her again. For a moment, she ignored those ugly taunts of self-consciousness and wrapped her hands back to unhook her bra, pretending she was stripping for a phantom, entranced Gary. She pretended she was the sexiest girl in the world, trying to mimic the look of the models she'd seen in her sister's fashion magazines. Her face turned a hot red as she slipped the bra strap off her arm and pulled the garment away from her breasts. No matter how wild her imagination, they just couldn't play the part, and she finally dropped her bra, along with her stupid delusion, onto the floor.
After a silent moment, feeling her skin exposed to the cool, still air of the bathroom, her thoughts of inadequacy slowly succumbed to her more overpowering instincts. Her fingers automatically took their place on her nipples. Although still technically a virgin, she was brought up not to be ashamed of sex. She had stimulated herself to orgasm so many times that her routine was second nature. Her hair tickled across her shoulder, as her nipples slid into the sharp curves separating her fingers. She pinched them lightly, and rubbed them until they were little peaks poking out toward the mirror.
Her hands slipped along her thin waist and her thumbs hooked around the waistband of her panties, finally sliding them down and letting them drop around her ankles. She stepped out of them, and brushed her hair away from her face.
Now finally naked in front of the mirror, she felt so insignificant, so little--like she was the runt of the litter. The tiny freckles on her forearms, the bruise she'd gotten the other day on the inside of her calf from that damn kitchen chair, her plain face, and her small boobs--they all just seemed the antithesis to what guys wanted. Her sister was so gorgeous; she sometimes wished she had been born with one tenth her looks. Thank God her body's reflection had nothing to do with how good it could feel. She was a sexual creature, and she knew it--probably more so than most girls her age--even those that actually had sex.
